Right fain I go forth to the spear-mote
Being fitted for every encounter.
There Cormac's gay shield from his clutches
I clave with the bane of the bucklers,
For he scorned in the battle to seek me
If we set not the lists of the holmgang."

Thus they parted; and then Cormac went home to Mel and saw his
mother. She healed his hand; it had become ugly and healed
badly. The notch in Skofnung they whetted, but the more they
whetted the bigger it was. So he went to Reykir, and flung
Skofnung at Skeggi's feet, with this verse: --

(28)
"I bring thee, thus broken and edgeless,
The blade that thou gavest me, Skeggi!
I warrant thy weapon could bite not:
I won not the fight by its witchcraft.
No gain of its virtue nor glory
I got in the strife of the weapons,
When we met for to mingle the sword-storm
For the maiden my singing adorns."

Said Skeggi, "It went as I warned thee." Cormac flung forth and
went home to Mel: and when he met with Dalla he made this song:--

(29)
"To the field went I forth, O my mother
The flame of the armlet who guardest, --
To dare the cave-dweller, my foeman